


golden spring

by BiblioMatsuri



Series: All the Happy Children [6]
Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Boys Being Boys, Canon-Typical Violence, Demonic Possession, Domestic, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Insanity, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, One-Sided Attraction, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Sister-Sister Relationship, Story within a Story, Suicidal Thoughts, tsundere Izumo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1922127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiblioMatsuri/pseuds/BiblioMatsuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spin me a story for halcyon days. (She's smiling.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	golden spring

Izumo looks at the mess that used to be her living room. She wants to scream.

“Ah, Izumo...”

She whirls. Mikemochi is in humanoid form, carrying a basket of cleaning supplies and looking _almost_ apologetic. If she didn't know better, she'd think he wasn't silently laughing his head off. As it is, she huffs and yanks a rag and a bottle of floor cleaner from his hands.

As she tries to sop up the spilled food, she's certain she can hear Mike laughing at her.

By the time she moves on to the table (the table, the dishes, _why are there orange peels everywhere?_ ) she can hear high-pitched squeals in the hallway. The door slides open, and Tsukumo barrels into the room, sweet-sticky and her socks covered in mud. Why.

Izumo smiles. “Tsukumo, what did you even get into?”

As her sister excitedly explains her day, starting with a trip to the park and going on through “then that nice onii-chan gave me the cookies he baked” she's ready to scream again. This time, she has a target.

Izumo calmly puts the sponge down, peels off the bulky rubber gloves and asks Ukemochi to watch Tsukumo. She ties her shoes and wipes down Tsukumo's tiny sandals with the hem of her skirt. It's not as though she could get any dirtier at this point. Then she tears out of the house, down the street (Paku says hi; her smile is just a bit too wide and her eyes are laughing) and into the city.

Up a flight of steps, cut through the old park with the broken swing, past the lit-up movie theater with its posters of dark-haired women, and one last shortcut down the alleyway to the entrance of a certain tiny church. She raps on the door, one two three four, and waits.

One of the other priests opens it, a boring man with messy brown hair and a kind smile. “Kamiki-kun? Is that you?”

A vein pulses. She carefully smooths out her frown. “Yes, it's me. Is Okumura home?”

His face falls. “So he's in trouble again, huh? I'll try to find him. Would you like to wait inside?”

She's about to say no when she looks around, studies the unfamiliar streets and vaguely-smiling faces, and suddenly wants to have at least a sturdy door between her and them. She nods, says yes quickly and politely, and dashes inside before the door can close.

Okumura-sensei (who is “sensei” to everyone but his family and the freeloading drunk woman who sleeps on their couch, because he's not-so-secretly a stuffy old man) is chastising his older brother for something or other. Okumura is shouting back, his voice loud enough to shake the walls.

Izumo shakes her head, walks briskly forward and grabs his ear.

“ _OWW!_ ”

“Okumura.”

“Ow, ow, I need that ear, _what?_ ”

“Did you or did you not give my little sister sugar?”

He flinches, somehow wriggling out of her grasp. “I only gave her two cookies. And they're shortbread, they're not that sweet.”

“Shortbread isn't sweet?” Okumura-sensei asks. His tone is as mild as skim milk, but he's obviously smirking behind his hand.

“Not that much!” Okumura protests.

Izumo sighs. “You're coming with me and helping me clean it up.”

“But-”

“No buts!”

“And clean what up?” he whines.

She ignores him, leading the way outside. Someone is blocking the door – a grown man, tall and black-clothed, shiny glasses and a gentle smile. “Hello, Kamiki-chan.”

There's that vein again. “Fujimoto-sensei. Good afternoon.”

He grins, wide and boyish. Honestly, this is the twins' father? (She can see the resemblance to Okumura, they're both overgrown kids and hotheads, but how on Earth did a goofball like this raise someone as serious as Okumura-sensei?)

She glances over her shoulder. “Okumura, what are you waiting for?”

He's pale, quieter than she's ever seen him. “Oyaji? You're here?”

He grins wider. It doesn't seem to fit his face anymore. “I can't come home to see my favorite sons?”

“We're your only sons,” Okumura points out. He doesn't sound as excited as he usually is.

Behind him, Okumura-sensei is silent, watching the scene carefully over the tops of his glasses.

Whatever, he's not her father. It's not like it matters.

“Let's go, Okumura.” She grabs his wrist and pulls him out of the church, past the shut-down movie theater with its posters of pale-haired women, cutting through the abandoned playground with its broken swing.

Okumura waves at a tiny smiling blonde in kimono. She drags him along and pulls him faster.

They slow down outside a strange Buddhist temple. She can hear a chant of prayer echoing between her breaths.

Okumura is yelling something at the two smallest, probably novices or someone's children. A broadly-built boy with a bad haircut (Is that supposed to be a mohawk? Then why does he have the rest of his hair, and why in the world is it blond?) yells right back.

Izumo huffs out a curse. There are two of them. Great.

She leans against a tree, trying to slow her breaths. Okumura doesn't even look like he's broken a sweat, the jerk.

“Um, hello?”

She looks up. It's the other boy, tiny and forgettable, with a shaved head and glasses. He looks like he'd cheerfully blend into the wallpaper if there were any.

She mutters a “good afternoon” at him. She knows it's rude, but her head hurts and the sun is too bright and it's so hot she's sweating buckets. She'll be polite when she can breathe.

He just smiles understandingly. “Are you a friend of Okumura-san's?”

She blinks. “...Yes.”

And she is, somehow. She doesn't even have a clue why, but somehow she and this hotheaded loudmouthed idiot are friends. How in the world did that happen?

The boy nods. “Good. I'm glad.”

Slowly, the world falls back into focus. Something tugs at her memory. 

“Weren't there three of you?”

She'd said that just as Okumura and mohawk boy fell quiet, and the words ring through the clearing, harsh and discordant as a broken prayer bell.

Okumura and the other boy, Bon-san, look away. Miwa-san smiles, silent and bitter and not reaching his eyes. “I'm sorry. He's no longer with us.”

It hurts, somehow. She doesn't know why. 

“Oh,” she says dumbly.

The smile tightens. “It's all right. It was all his idea to start with. It wasn't your fault.”

The words ring hollow, meaningless.

Someone tugs at her hand. It's Okumura, smiling like his father had, bright and empty. “Let's go, Eyebrows. Weren't you going to make me clean up the mess at your house?”

She blinks. Had she told him that? “Yes. I was. Let's go.”

Her voice sounds flat, even to herself. She realizes she's holding Okumura's hand too tightly, hard enough to bruise, but she can't let go.

“Anyway, I know where we are now,” he continues. “We just took a left when we should have turned right, no big deal. Let's just backtrack and get to your house, okay?”

She nods. That sounds reasonable.

“And then I can use your fancy kitchen!”

“NO!”

Okumura shouts exuberant see-you-laters at the – duo, not trio now. She says goodbye more politely. For all that she's tired, she feels like she can breathe again, and she doesn't want to lose that so quickly.

They walk this time, and the sun is nearly done setting by the time they reach her tiny town. The trip is shorter than she remembered, but it's still long enough for unsettling thoughts to reach her. Unsettling thoughts like _why am I so worried about Tsukumo, why did that third boy die,_ and _since when does stupid Okumura have such a nice smile?_

He hasn't stopped chattering once, since they left the temple. His voice is loud and a bit raspy and it echoes like footsteps in an empty hall. It's comforting somehow, like the flash of too-sharp teeth and the overenthusiastic waving of his free hand.

After the fourth time he accidentally knocks something over, she snaps, “Will you please calm down?”

He pouts at her like an upset four-year-old.

“My baby sister is more mature than you are.”

“Hey!”

They pass by Paku's home, and she's still sitting on the front step. “Hello, Izumo-chan. Hello, Okumura-san.”

“Hey!”

“Good evening, Paku.” On a whim, Izumo pauses. “Were you waiting for me?”

Paku nods, still smiling serenely.

“Why?”

“I heard a story not too long ago, and it made me think of you. Do you want to hear it?”

Izumo looks down the road, worried, but the square is empty of staring passers-by and Tsukumo should be safe at home with Uke and Mike. “All right.”

Now Okumura cuts in. “Wait, Eyebrows, I thought we were in a hurry-”

“I have time for Paku,” Izumo snaps.

He frowns, the expression odd on his face, but he doesn't pull away.

Paku begins. “Once upon a time, there were two little princesses. They were beautiful girls, skin pale as snow and hair dark as coal. Their mother was still more beautiful, bright and kind and endlessly loving. She loved her two daughters very much, but she loved her husband even more.”

Izumo takes a deep breath. 

“The king was not a bad king, but he did not love children. In fact, he couldn't stand them, and he had many women, wives and concubines and mistresses and more. For all her beauty, the girls' mother was only one of many, and as her daughters grew older the king went to her less and less, not wishing to see their footprints on the floor or their toys scattered about.”

Izumo tugs at her collar. 

“Their mother grew bitter, harsh and cold, her kind heart burned out by jealousy and fear. She wanted the king's attentions, but as long as she was a mother she could not have him. The love she held for her children soured and turned to hate, and she wished that her first daughter had never been born.”

The heat is pressing in on her, stifling.

“One day an ancient spirit came to her, sharp-eyed and sweet-voiced. The spirit told her that it could give her everything she wished for. In exchange, all it wanted was her body, her worn-out old body marred with motherhood, the body her man no longer wanted. All she had to do was give it away, and she and her man would be together forever.”

Izumo gasps, choking.

“The mother said yes.”

She falls. 

“For you see, the spirit was a demon, foul and malevolent. It had tricked the woman, using her grief and madness to reach into her mind and warp her wishes. The woman's body changed to suit its wishes, her coal-dark hair turned gold and her neat-trimmed nails turned claws. Woman and demon, she hunted down her husband, ripped him open and ate his insides. They would be, as promised, together forever.”

Her hand, slick with cold sweat, falls out of his.

“And the two little princesses were left all alone.”

She left Tsukumo, the others left her, she is alone now and she always will be.

Paku's brown hair is gold under the streetlights.

She is alone.

She smiles Tamamo's smile.

Izumo screams.

Bitten-down nails claw at her wrists. The most she can do is streak her white skin red for a moment. It isn't enough, she isn't enough, she failed Tsukumo, _she failed she failed she failed_. Uke and Mike are dead and Tsukumo is doomed and her classmates are in danger and it's all _her fault_ for being weak and gullible and childish and believing that she somehow deserved to have _friends_.

She laughs until her voice gives out and she falls silent.

She hopes she'll die quickly.


End file.
